(Someone else asked)
> Your answer to the question is one of the best bunch of skill sets
so
> far. As a married mother of one in high school, which of
those skills
> did you not have?

(Kim replied)
Hmmmmm.....At that point, I think I had all the basic "life skills",
but not from choice, they came from having to learn them. I was the
oldest of 8 kids with a psychotic mother who liked to go on "drink
binges" about once every two weeks. She'd leave on a Friday night and
not come back until 10 days later, or whenever the mood struck her -
and the youngest of my siblings at that time was less than a year old
and went up from there. I had to stay home from school and take care of
the babies, cook the meals, pay the bills, do the shopping and keep
everything running. I learned how to run a household fairly early on
out of necessity. There was no one else there to do it.

And I read - a lot. It was my escape. And since I was only going to
school part time - I pretty much read all of my textbooks cover to
cover and did all the testsand homework assignments in the book and
wrote out all the "Further questions" from the ends of the chapters to
try and keep up so when I *DID* get to go to school, I wasn't so far
behind. And when I did have free time or a day when my mother was home,
I'd go to the library and just take books home from every section -
from reference books to self help books to "how to" books to almanacs
and encyclopedias. I think that's where I learned to NOT like fiction -
I didn't have time for "make believe" - I read to learn so that
someday, when I got out, I'd be ready.

So I learned lots of things, like there were other ways to live and
that not everyone had to miss school to take care of their sisters and
brothers, and not everyone got beat all the time when their mother came
home, and got yelled at for not doing something the way she would have
done it if she was there to do it, and not all mothers left you alone
all the time. And I learned early on to never, ever depend on anyone -
not your mother, not your father, and certainly not some man out of a
bar - like the men my mother brought home and more often than not stole
from her or left when all the money and the liquor was gone. I learned
that you have to make your own way, and rely on yourself and that if
you depended on someone else to do shit - even shit they were SUPPOSED
to do - you'd end up disappointed with a sinkful of dishes. And I liked
to make promises to myself. Like "I'm going to get the fuck out of here
and I'm going to go to college and I'm going to get a good job and I'm
NEVER going to treat my kids like this." And I kept all those promises.

When I had kids, I took them to all the places I never got to go - like
amusement parks and camping and fairs and museums and the park and the
beach and skiing, and we'd explore together and do new things together
and see new places together, and we rode the ferry to New York for no
reason at all, and went to the ice caves and Parc La Ronde, and walked
all the way up the mountain in Battery Park to the tower, and we went
to the library for "Story hour" and sometimes we'd just stay home
together and we'd read and we'd play and I taught them things like how
to read and how to tell time and how to add and how to tie their shoes
and glue macaroni onto paper plates and how to make turkeys with your
hand, and I was always there to tuck them in at night and I never left
for days on end and made them take care of each other and wonder if I
wasn't coming back this time.

And I made sure that my kids were never jealous of other people who had
a mom and a dad and had a family that seemed to give a shit about each
other, because I knew how painful it was to go and visit cousins who
la-di-da'd through their happy little existence with their biggest
problem in life being the decision of whether to go outside and ride
their new bike or stay inside in their room full of toys. And who
seemed to never appreciate the fact that their mom was home to wash
their fucking laundry and no one hit each other or yelled at each other
or called the kids bad names and swore all the time at them or hit them
with belts and spatulas. But they seemed to never notice that I was
standing there so envious and so sad that there but for an errant sperm
cell, go I. And that I was crying inside because I thought it so unfair
how different my life would be if I was the daughter of one of my
grandma's OTHER sons. And I hated God because biologically, I was SO
close to having this real family, yet so, so far away.

At my father's funeral a couple of years ago, I went to my Uncle Jack,
and I thanked him. And he said "Thank you? For what, Kimmy?" (my family
all calls me "Kimmy".) And I said "Thank you, Uncle Jack, for showing
me when I was little that there were other ways to be a family. Thank
you for being such a good example for me.I never would have known,
otherwise that men could be real fathers, and women could be real
mothers. I always knew that someday, I wanted my kids to have a dad
like you - and a mom like Aunt Pat. I used to go to your house and
always cry on the way home because I couldn't live with you, and
because I didn't have a real family, like you were, and I always
wondered if your kids knew how lucky they were and how much they had -
and it made me sad that they probably didn't know. The memories of
visiting your house represented everything in my life that I ever
fought for. And one time, you called me "such a pretty little girl' and
you know, I still remember that to this day, because no one else had
ever said that to me."

He hugged me and said "You know, your Aunt Pat and I always thought you
were so smart and so special, and now I know why.You *are* special."
And that made me really happy. And I thought it was a little ironic,
that here I was at my father's funeral, and I was thanking someone else
for showing me what a father was.